


a suitcase and a trunk

by iamthemagicks



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: 1920s, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Frankenstein-esque, Horror, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Resurrection, Science Experiments, limited knowledge of voodoo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-02-29 13:41:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18779422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamthemagicks/pseuds/iamthemagicks
Summary: In 1920s Louisiana. Merriell Shelton is executed. His lover, Eugene Sledge resurrects him from the dead. They run away to the safety of Eugene's childhood friend so Merriell can recover.





	1. Chapter 1

“I can’t see,” Merriell says. The world around him is black but familiar. He hears the sounds of the bayou, the frogs and the cicadas, the slow-moving water as gators swim by. The trees shake with the wind, but he doesn’t feel it on his skin. He thinks maybe he’s floating in the water, but doesn’t feel wet. “I can’t see,” he says again.

“They covered your eyes for the ferryman,” a woman answers. “Be a minute before you’ll be seein’ again.” Her voice is also familiar, but he can’t place it. 

He touches his eyes and sure enough, he feels large coins over his lids, cool under his fingertips. He can’t remove them. Panic moves up from his stomach into his throat and he thinks he’ll be sick. He starts scratching at his neck and discovers that the skin is rough and raw, and then he remembers. “Am I dead?”

The woman laughs. He hears her moving around, bare feet on a wooden floor. She taps something against her hip. A spoon maybe? A ladle? “Of course, you are, baby.”

Merriell runs both of his hands around his neck, remembering the feel of the rope. His neck didn’t snap, he remembers that. He was choked by the noose, dangling like a common criminal. “Is this Hell?”

She scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. A Paris isn’t goin’ to Hell.” 

His momma’s maiden name. “Why ain’t I in Heaven, then?” There were plenty of reasons, he thought, that he wouldn’t go to Heaven. 

“They didn’t dig you a grave,” the woman says. “Good thing too, the Baron always waits. But he ain’t waiting for you anymore.” 

“Where am I gonna go?”

“I think that boy of yours is fixin’ to call you back.”

Merriell smiles, thinking of Eugene. “He’s a scientist.”

“Better that way,” she says. “You don’t want to steal what’s owed to the baron.”

Merriell starts to feel the water around his feet, inching up his legs. “I ain’t owed?”

“You’re not going to make it that far,” she says. He still can’t see anything, but she puts a hand over his chest. She feels like his mother, warm and comforting, smelling of lavender and lilac incense. 

“Maman?” he asks.

“Close,” she says. The hand moves from his chest to cup his cheek. “You just stay here with me until your boy comes callin’.”

Normally an untrusting person, Merriell nods in agreement. There’s something about this woman that he knows like she’d been watching him his whole life. It could easily be a trick, the loas were known to do so. He could very well be in Hell or Purgatory. Anywhere. He barely remembered dying, maybe he was still choking to death on the rope and this is a long vision before his heart stops beating. 

The woman takes his hand and starts to lead him from where ever he happens to be, and he goes willingly, the sound of the swamps and gators following.

 

*

 

There was a funeral for viewing. Merriell’s mother, Berthe, gathered her daughters, her sister and nephew, and Eugene Sledge into a small church near her home. Even though Eugene was going to resurrect Merriell, Berthe insisted Merriell pass through the church doors. She dressed her son’s skin in precious and blessed oils, she sprinkled holy water over his face and hands. She said blessings over him; Eugene didn’t understand the French or Creole. He just watched helplessly. 

It was his fault Merriell had been killed. His mother caught the two of them together in Eugene’s room, Eugene bent over his desk, Merriell behind him, _inside_ of him. She screamed for his father who went for the sheriff. Merriell ran away and Eugene was locked in his room like a child.

After the funeral, Merriell’s cousin, Raymond and, and sister, Solange gather Merriell from the church and bring him to Eugene’s lab. To call it a lab is actually quite generous. Eugene rented some basement space from one of his brother’s contacts on the edge of town, a few yards away from the swamp. There’s just enough room for his table, for the medical equipment he needs, for the generator in the corner. There’s a creaky bookshelf lined with textbooks and jars of herbs and ingredients, a desk barely wide enough for Eugene to shuffle through research and papers, especially when Merriell has left out his spellbooks and tarot cards. 

The cards lay out now, just as Merriell had left them the last time they’d worked in the lab. Eugene can tell that Merriell had been doing a reading on himself; Eugene didn’t understand any of it, but he saw Merriell’s card, the Magician, and the ten of swords, which was the bad omen. With a lump of burning coal in his throat, Eugene touched the cards, as if it would somehow fix it all. 

The coal turns into a sob that he tries to contain as he moves from the desk to a bedside table taken from his room, that holds the medical supplies he’ll need. The scalpel and stitching sundries, rags and bandages, jars with collected body fluids that Merriell would need. Lubrication for joints, new blood to keep things going, a little bit of an elixir that Berthe promised would keep Merriell whole. 

As Eugene rolls up his sleeves, there’s a knock at the back door. He glances through the window and sees the side of his brother waiting on the porch. Thankfully, Edward couldn’t be bothered with who Eugene was fucking; he’d come back from the war a broken reflection of himself and missing an arm, what did it matter that his brother was queer? He’d helped Eugene fund his basement space and experiments, and is providing him with blocks of ice to keep Merriell’s body cold for the procedure. 

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Edward asked.

“Mostly,” Eugene replies. 

Edward looks him up and down as Raymond passes to take the ice to the lab. “You ain’t going full voodoo?”

Solange, who’d been across the room prepping Merriell’s body with oils, glared at Edward from behind Eugene’s shoulder. “We don’t fuck with black magic,” she says as she approaches him. “All you white boys think it’s headless chickens and aphrodisiacs.” She speaks calmly and sweetly as can be, but Solange is a viper when threatened or vexed. She twirls a strand of dark hair around her finger. “Maybe I can whip something up? Show you how our spells really work?” That’s her rattling her tail.

“Solange,” Eugene sighs. “Ed’s just droppin’ off the ice. He don’t mean anything, right, Ed?”

His brother took a deep breath but was falling under Solange’s charms, even though that charm was a threat. Eugene has to kick at Edward’s boot before he clears his throat and answers. “Uh, yeah, yeah. The ice. I hope it works, Gene, I really do. What Mother and Father did…” He shakes his head. “You’d be well within your rights for vengeance.”

Solange’s hard look softens and she puts a hand on Eugene’s shoulder.

Eugene licks his lips. “That ain’t what’s important right now.” Thick silence falls over them, the same kind that had followed Edward when he first came home from the war. 

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.” Eugene watches his brother trudge down the stony path to his automobile, taking in the surroundings.

“Alright,” Raymond announces, returning from the cellar. “He’s on ice.” He can’t help but laugh at the joke no one will make.

Solange rolls her eyes. “Really, Ray?”

Eugene grins. “He woulda liked that.”

She lets a small smile crack before nodding. “He would have.” 

Silence settles over them. Raymond concentrates on his boots, scuffed with swamp mud. Solange steps closer to the table, running a finger along Eugene’s tools. He would have to cut Merriell open, to check for broken parts, and to hook up the machine. Throughout this ordeal, he has to keep Merriell’s heart pumping. It’s grotesque, but in all the studies, all the notes, and rumors, and after his success with his dog and the birds, that was the one constant. 

They would keep Merriell’s body cold, his skin moist, and the heart going. “I’d like to do this part alone,” Eugene says, hands on the table. 

“Are you sure?” Raymond asks. 

Solange runs her hands over Eugene’s shoulders. “We’ll be just outside should you need us.” 

He nods, and Solange takes Raymond by the arm, to lead him from the cellar, out the back door. They won’t be far, Eugene doubts they’ll even leave the property. He imagines they’ll just sit in the cart, or on the back porch. 

Eugene rolls the perpetual motion machine closer. He’ll hook tubes to some of Merriell’s heart valves, keeping the muscle pumping and moving. The heart will beat, but his lungs will not breathe and he will not be alive. Not yet. That requires more. 

“I hope you can forgive me for this,” he says to Merriell before picking up a scalpel. He’s gotten Solange to cover Merriell’s face with a cloth. He says a prayer to God, to Berthe’s voodoo loas before he takes the tool and cuts into Merriell’s chest. He almost expected a reaction. 

Without circulation or the beating of the heart, the body does not bleed. Not really. It doesn’t squirt, it doesn’t spill everywhere. It is simply there, pooling into pockets of organs. He tries to imagine that this is just a body from the morgue, something that he was required to study while in school, but how can he not when he knows every mark and inch of skin on his body?

His hands tremble as he goes for the rib spreader. It looks like a primitive instrument, old metal, and a hand crank. He slips it inside Merriell’s chest and twists the handle; the sound of the cracking ribs almost makes Eugene vomit, but he persists, giving himself just enough space to stick in his hands and grab Merriell’s heart.

Right now, it’s a cold slab of muscle, almost white from the lack of blood flow. The human heart weighs just under a pound, eleven ounces if Eugene remembers correctly. As he holds Merriell’s in his hands it feels like it weighs much less. Eugene thinks his own heart is shaped like a rock, weighing him down. He feels it in his chest, its inconsistent beats, its strain to keep up with the world. Guilt currently resides in his own valves and chambers.

Tears sting his eyes and he tries to keep them from falling, but how can he when he’s standing over the dead body of the man he loves with that man’s heart in his hands? “I’m so sorry,” he whispers to the heart, to Merriell’s covered face. “I’m gonna make this right.” Hands still shaking, he reaches for the tubes of the perpetual motion machine and starts to connect it to Merriell’s heart valves. “It’ll be like with Deacon, and he turned out just fine, remember?”

His dog had been killed in an accident, so his mother said. Slipped off the leash in the backyard and ran right into the woods, came back a day later, limping, covered in bites, bleeding from the neck. He didn’t last long after that, too much blood loss and a ripped spleen. Eugene always suspected that his mother let Deacon out on purpose because she hated that dog. He dug up her begonias and barked early in the morning while she slept. 

Deacon had died in Eugene’s arms in their basement; he’d already cleaned up the blood and stitched up the other bites, but it was futile. Eugene sat on the floor with his dog like a child, crying, trying to figure out what to do. 

There were always rumors of the undead in New Orleans, Eugene never paid it any mind. But once in school, he heard even more rumors, this time coming from the academic side of things. His fellow medical students passed around an old book with notes and handwritten accounts of resurrection experiments. What did he have to lose?

Deacon lives with an old friend in Alabama, now, which is where Eugene will take Merriell if everything works out.

“Remember when I said I didn’t want to be a doctor?” Eugene says, cradling the heart in his hands. “We’re gonna make this right.” He squeezes the heart once; blood moves, but it doesn’t catch to the machine. He pumps six more times, making it an uneven seven. A lucky number. “Please,” he whispers. “Come on, Mer, you’ve gotta meet me halfway. Or part of the way. I’ll carry us to the end.” 

The heart is still cold, feeling exceptionally dead in his hands. Eugene starts crying again, holding tightly. As he stares at the lump of sickly pinkish flesh, crying over his dead lover, the motion machine picks up, and starts to pump the blood. Eugene stutters and breath and looks from the machine and to his hand, watching color return to Merriell’s heart.

*

When Merriell finally sees, it’s almost too bright. The sun hurts his eyes and the world around him looks washed out and almost white. He stands on a creaky front porch, bare feet getting covered in brick dust. He glances behind him and sees the swamp, the water glittering and lapping waves from the wind. 

“I know you weren’t raised in a barn,” a woman--the same woman--calls from just inside the house. Because of the brightness, Merriell doesn’t recognize his surroundings, only the sensation of the dust on his feet. 

He does as he’s told and steps inside, closing the door behind him. He goes for the rosary around his wrist, but can’t find it; he tries for the medallion around his neck, but only finds rope-burned skin. 

Inside, he finds himself standing in a small kitchen. It smells of sweet bread and something friend. The woman stands at a counter, kneading dough. She reaches for spices and flour, folding it into the dough. She’s beautiful, stunning, brown skin darker than his own, her hair covered by a red turban. She wears a patchwork house dress and gold and silver bracelets clink as she kneads and works the bread. He steps forward for a better look and recognizes her from books and paintings around town. 

He panics and bows his head, then kneels. “Madame LaVeau,” he starts, trying to find the right words.

She chuckles and gestures for him to stand up. “My kin doesn’t need to bow to me.”

Slowly, he rises, bones stiff. “Kin?” It was long rumored that Berthe Shelton is the granddaughter of Marie LaVeau. It was a rumor that Berthe carried with her like a playing card, neither confirming or denying it. The very thought was enough to earn her respect in town from the white folk. He touches his neck and is reminded that kin didn’t mean anything when he was a colored boy who practiced voodoo and fucked a pretty white boy with rich parents. Ain’t nobody but the Baron himself who could’ve stopped that. 

Marie nods, rolling the dough. “You’re Berthe’s boy, yes?”

“Yes.”

“You know she had three boys before you that didn’t live?” She finally turns her head to face him, her eyes moon-wide and brown. She stares deeply at him, as if she’s known him his entire life.

Merriell nods and steps closer; he holds onto his elbow with one hand, covering his naked chest. He’s found himself in his blue jeans and barefoot. “I know.” He licks his lips. “Do you know what I’m doin’ here? I’m supposed to be dead.”

She chuckles. “Oh, you are, darlin’. Remember I told you? They didn’t dig you a grave, so we’re just waitin’.”

“On what?”

“You told me that boy of yours is a scientist.” 

Eugene’s face comes into his mind, his beautiful redheaded boy, love of his short life. He’d made a promise at the jail before the execution. _Just like with Deacon and the birds. I can do it, Merriell. I’ll do it._

“He is,” Merriell says. “Is he workin’ on me?”

Marie rolls the dough out and folds it again before sticking it in a pan. It reminds him of his mother’s kitchen, warm and sunny, the herbs and spices in jars, the smell of bread and flowers in the air. “That boy’s heart is bleedin’ for you. He’s gonna bring you back. Don’t you fret.” She smiles and sticks the bread into the oven. 

He hears his favorite sounds coming from outside: the crickets and cicadas, animals getting into the water, climbing out. Peeper frogs in the trees. “I’m dead, that’s a lot to fret about.”

“Don’t worry, it won’t be for much longer.” She smiles sweetly and comes to him, putting her hands on the sides of his face. He gasps at her touch, warm, just like his mother. He feels something moving through his body, a new kind of liquid in his veins, electricity in his fingertips. 

He looks down at his palms. “This ain’t my power.” 

He talks to the swamp animals and the earth, he hears whispers of the departed, as long as . he had a talisman. Solange was the powerful one, the one who can wield and conjure electricity, whose spells always turned out exactly how she envisioned. 

The back door creaks open, drawing Marie’s attention. “Time to go, darlin’. You keep an eye out. Things are gonna change for you.” She steers him towards the back door, and he goes, holding his breath.


	2. Chapter 2

Based on research and autopsies, Eugene knew he would have to replace some body parts and organs. Unable to look directly at his face in this state, he kept Merriell’s face covered with a handkerchief. He was afraid that Merriell would wake up suddenly during the procedures, or worse, never wake up at all.

In hanging victims, if the neck was not broken, the hyoid bone usually was. Since Merriell strangled to death, his hyoid was in pieces, there was no way that Eugene would be able to set it correctly. His neck didn’t break, but parts of the upper vertebrae stretched and were useless; and because he struggled so much, a rib broke and punctured a lung, leaving the soft lobes in shreds, also useless. 

For two days, they kept Merriell on ice, and his body drenched in formaldehyde and alcohol. Bodies start to deteriorate quickly in the swamp heat. If he deteriorates, then he won’t heal once resurrected and be nothing more than a walking, rotting corpse. 

Once he figured out the parts he would need, he gave the list to Leonie, along with pictures. _I know what lungs look like,_ she told him with a scoff, more interested in being a doctor than he was. _And I know what a hyoid is._ She’d folded his notes into a small square and stuffed it into her brassier. 

At only fifteen, Leonie is smarter than Eugene, smarter than everyone around them. She easily read through the medical textbooks that collected dust on his shelves, she sneaked into university halls for lectures, and followed graverobbers at night. Petite and confident, she had the ability to slip by almost anyone, unnoticed. So, when Eugene gave her a list of parts needed after his initial examination, she knew where to get fresh parts, and get them without being seen. 

Eugene had been sitting in the cellar with him, at his desk, reading through Merriell’s tarot cards, as if he knew what they meant. Merriell read his cards all the time with a chuckle, mapping out their future. _You’re my lucky card,_ Merriell always said. The cards are soft and worn under Eugene’s fingers, familiar as Merriell’s skin. He brings them to his nose to inhale their scent; sweet tobacco and honeysuckle. It all brings tears to Eugene’s eyes and he pushes away from the desk before they can drop onto the cards. 

He glanced across the room at Merriell’s body, still and eerie in the dimness. Only one light worked, the one that hung directly above Merriell, and that bulb was flickering in and out. Eugene had lit two candles and a lamp, weary of anything tipping over and starting a fire. 

The coldness made him shiver, stuffing his hands into his pockets. The ring on his left middle finger had slipped off several times, sinking to the bottom of his pocket. He fingered it, running his thumb over the face of the gem in the center. Heliotrope, also called a bloodstone, for its black color that’s speckled with crimson spots. The stone set in the middle of a copper band, a family heirloom going back to the time of slavery, Merriell told Eugene when he gifted it to him. _I was supposed to give it to my lady one day._

Eugene also wore Merriell’s talisman around his neck and rosary around his wrist. 

Leonie returned with the needed specimens, put in jars and more fluids for preservation. “And they’re recent?” Eugene asked.

“Of course. I can pick out organs, Eugene.” She set the jars on the table next to Merriell’s body. One pink lung, the hyoid bone, and a few bits of vertebra and spinal cord. All in pristine condition, Eugene almost expected the lung to still be filling and expanding. She looked from Merriell to Eugene, and must have sensed his exhaustion and broken heart. “Do you want me to help?”

“No,” he said. “No, I couldn’t ask you. He’s your brother.” He couldn’t imagine doing the same to Edward, or even to have been the one that had amputated his arm. 

Leonie came to Eugene’s side, wrapping her tiny arm around his, and pressing her sweet head to his shoulder. “I’d be honored to do it; and you’ve already been working so hard. You already cut him open, _Rouille._ Let me do this for you.” She looked up at him with the same moon-wide eyes Merriell has. The same aquamarine color, the same push and pull to them. 

Cutting Merriell open had been almost harder than watching him hang. Eugene had to stop several times to lean over to the sink to vomit. After he’d examined and removed the broken parts, Eugene burned the lab coat and gloves that he had been wearing. Berthe told him to burn the body parts, too, so no one could get a hold of them. So he did, watching the flames dance and hearing the logs and wood pop and sing.

Eugene nods in agreement, afraid to speak. He bites down on his bottom lip, not wanting Leonie to see. 

“Why don’t you go home?” Leonie says, as she pulls back her long hair. She ties it tightly out of her face, and rolls her sleeves up to the elbows. 

“I don’t want to leave him,” Eugene sheepishly answers. 

“It would just be for the night.” She starts digging through Eugene’s tools, pulling out the scalpel and sewing kit, the bandages and tape. She also has a jar of swamp mud, something that Berthe made that would heal scars and burns. “When was the last time you slept?”

He shrugs, scratching at the rosary. He’d been sleeping in little bouts at the desk, or in a comfortable chair kept in the front room. When he closed his eyes for too long, he saw Merriell dangling there by the neck. 

Leonie stands on her tiptoes to reach the light over the table. At her touch, the bulb brightens threefold, giving her adequate light to see where she’d be working. Eugene has to squint and the new splash of light. “Maman has food for you. She’ll want you to rest.” 

“She’ll drug me,” he says.

“Probably,” Leonie agrees. “You won’t be working until tomorrow. Please, Gene. Go rest.”

He looks at Merriell’s body then at Leonie pulling on an apron. Though clean, he still feels the blood on his arms and the hyoid bone stuck between his fingers. “Alright,” he agrees. She ushers him out and locks the door behind him.

He walks alone through town, staying to the sidewalk. No one out at this hour except the drunks and a few prostitutes. They call to him offering their business, but he politely declines. “I’m spoken for,” he tells them. One girl laughs because she’s seen him and Merriell under bridges and behind big trees.

To get to his parents’ home, he would have kept walking down the main strip through town, just a mile and he’d be at the front door. He knows if he went, they would let him in. His mother would pull him into a tight embrace and brush his hair from his forehead. How could he ever face her again?

The Shelton homestead stood at the other end of the winding road out of town. Not a large mansion like his parents’ home, but Berthe kept a decent sized house, something passed down through the family and maintained. It was by the water and the woods, surrounded by bushes and thatches of flowers and herbs. He cans smell the lilac blooms as he makes his way down the gravel drive. Berthe is waiting for him on the front porch, the door and her arms open. “You look like shit, baby.” 

His eyebrows raise as he shrugs. “Thanks.”

Her hands pull on his shoulders to bring him to her body. She is warm against him, smelling of lilac and ivory hand soap. Her little hands wander over his back, rubbing, and she coos to him, pressing her mouth against his ear. “What you’re doing for me and mine, God and the loa will bless you for that.”

“I’m also doin’ it for myself,” he says into the crook of her neck. 

“Of course you are. And that’s just fine.” She kisses his cheek. “I’ve made your favorite soup and bread. You haven’t eaten in days.” She releases him and starts to walk to the dining room, expecting to be followed.

Eugene does, and closes the door behind him. He drags a hand over his face and yawn. The house smells of the creamy cheese and broccoli soup she’s made, of the bread kneaded that morning. At the table sits a bowl and plate for him, a glass of red wine. With a single hand to his back, she pushes him towards his chair, and she sits across from him. 

He stares into his soup, the spoon already in the bowl for him. “Did you drug it?”

Berthe chuckles. “ _Moi?_ Only some Valerian, pet. You need some rest.”

He stirs the soup and cracks his bread in half. The wine is the color of blood and unappetizing. “It don’t seem right to rest when he’s like that. When it was my fault.” He can’t bear to raise his eyes to her, knowing that he’s the reason her son is dead. 

“Eugene,” she sighs. She reaches for his hand across the table and grabs it, holding him fiercely. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He struggles to get out of her grip and her gaze, but finds it fruitless; Berthe’s grip is as strong as a saint’s. “It was my house... _my parents.”_

“Their actions, pet, not yours.” She takes her other hand to put on his wrist, causing him to cease his squirming. “Besides, neither one of us would ever have been able to keep Merriell away from you.” She pats the top of his hand before letting go and leaning back in her own chair, picking up her glass of wine. “This is the hard part. Waiting. And watching.” 

Eugene still doesn’t know how she was able to do it. Stand there and watch her only living son hang. He eats his soup, little bites at first, then rapidly fills his mouth, scraping the bottom of the bowl like a raccoon. She may have put something in there to increase his appetite. He finishes the bread and licks his fingers, but still doesn’t touch his wine.

After his plate is practically spotless, Berthe clears it for him, then urges him to stand. “Alright pet, you know where Merriell’s room is?”

“Hmm. Yes.” He’s starting to feel sleepy, his head practically floating from his shoulders. He wanders down the hall and to the grand staircase, not unlike the one in his mother’s home, except without the gaudy red carpeting and ugly, garish paintings on the wall. His hand is loose on the railing as he ascends, watching the stairs under his feet. He feels drunk and warm, and expects Merriell’s hand in his as he wobbles towards the bedroom.

It’s Berthe who puts a hand behind his shoulder blades and guides him to the farthest end of the hall to Merriell’s room. The house is big enough that it doesn’t feel like he still lives with his mother and sisters, their chambers all spread out between the first and second floors. Berthe unlocks Merriell’s door and directs Eugene to the bed; he’s getting more tired with each step.

He plops down on the mattress with little grace, and lets Berthe take off his shoes for him. She lays him down, head on the pillow, sheet pulled up to his waist. He stuffs his arms under the pillow, pressing his face into the fabric. “Momma,” he says with a whine, moving his face back and forth to rub his eyes. The mattress dips with Bethe’s weight as she sits next to him, rubbing his back. 

“That’s fine, pet,” she says, touching his ear. “You can call me Momma now.”

Feeling tired and like a child, he cries into the pillow, letting it all seep out of him. His great love for Merriell, the betrayal of his own parents, the emotional turmoil of removing body parts from his lover. His hands still felt sticky with blood. 

“Shh, it’s alright, pet, it’s alright,” Berthe coos to him. She begins to sing to him, like he was her own child, calming and comforting him. She rubs his back and plays with his hair in the most tender of ways. “We just have to wait a little longer.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said into the pillow, on the very precipice of sleep. She kisses his head and whispers something in French before Eugene succumbs to sleep. 

 

*

 

Merriell can’t see again. He blinks, and blinks, and blinks, but there’s nothing around him except blackness. He tries to speak, but finds his voice lacking. He tries to lash out, but finds his arms held down by leather straps. There is a storm brewing outside of where he’s being held. It’s loud and the thunder shakes him down to his bones. Weak bones. He starts to hear others around him, someone is saying his name, someone is trying to keep him still.

“You just need to calm down a minute,” a voice orders. He knows this voice, but he doesn’t list. His body jerks, back lifting from the table, wrists desperate to break free. While he doesn’t find a voice, he finds that he can groan and scream. 

His eyelids flutter and flicker and suddenly he sees the bright white flashes of lightning filling the room. Shadows dance around the walls and over the faces of the people around him. There’s a girl who looks like him, but doesn’t look like him, standing by his side, her whole body drenched wet as if she’d just walked out of the swamp. There’s a man standing to his other side, a panicked face and bloody hands. 

The woman shouts in French, the man in English, both becoming jumbled words in Merriell’s ears. His body aches, like he’d been run over, a white hot burn moves from his right hand, through his nervous system; he’d never felt the existence of his nervous system until know. He can feel every tiny nerve and fiber, every hair on his body, everyone receptor in his brain. 

Fear has never made him cry out before, but he’s never been this confused or alone. Or in this much pain. Not even when he broke his leg clear in half on a rock at the swimming hole. He struggles to form words, his lips fumbling and shaking. “Ma,” he begins, like a child. “Maman.” 

“It’s alright, Merriell,” the woman answers. She’s moved from his side to stand over him, holding his head between her dainty hands. The fingers are familiar, her voice and smell something he knows deep in his bones.

_My kin doesn’t kneel._ He looks around for that woman instead, the one who was baking him bread in the warm sun.

There’s another flash of lightning and another surge of something traveling through his body, igniting his nerves again. He screams, but the hands around his head move over his temples, and the pressure is gone, the pain as lightened. He hears the crackling of electricity right over his ears, and there’s a glowing bluish white light near his eyes. “There we go, love,” the woman says. 

He still can’t see her, but he can see the man on his other side, that panic on his face starting to ebb. He comes closer, setting his hand on the table. Merriell can feel his warmth, smell his sweat. Also things that he knows. His fingers reach and pull at the man’s fingers until their laced together. The man gasps and a single tear rolls down his cheek.

The blue light near his eyes starts to dim and his skin warms. The electricity moves into his body as the woman flattens her palms against his temples. The flow is pleasant, leisurely like a river. It goes through his veins and to his heart, then pumps back to his brain, shaking those nerve endings. 

The woman laughs and cries at the same time; the teardrops hit Merriell in the cheeks. He struggles to get a better look at the man, but all he can see and feel are his hand. “Maman,” Merriell says again.

“Soon,” the woman promises. He feels a kiss on his forehead. 

The man gives his fingers a good squeeze. 

Merriell’s panic begins to fade and he starts to feel light, as if he’s floating. Another hand comes on top of his fingers. He gives a nod before closing his eyes again, feeling very tired.


	3. Chapter 3

**iii.**

“I hate this machine,” Merriell groans, his head tilted back, a leg stretched out across the seat of the automobile, foot pressing against Eugene’s hip. They’re sitting in a piece of shit model T, borrowed from a friend of a friend of Eugene’s brother. Merriell’s been in automobiles before, but this one seems to hit every rock in the road and shakes like it’s caught in a storm. He feels the vibrations right down to his bones; his teeth chatter together, and he’s fairly certain that if his body shakes enough, all his stitches will come undone.

Eugene reaches his right hand over to cup Merriell’s knee. “It was either this or the horse and cart.”

“I like the horse.”

“Stop actin’ like a child, we’re almost there.” 

Merriell lifts his head slightly to watch Eugene. He’s been on edge since loading Merriell into this contraption before dawn, throwing their bags and belongings into the backseat. Eugene practically leans over the steering wheel, his shoulders up around his ears like an old man. He’s also clenching his jaw. Merriell can tell by the way the bones flex along Eugene’s cheeks. He wanted to stay in the swamp to heal. With his mother and sisters, with Eugene in some crummy shack deep in the bayou, but even his mother reminded him that the town would surely notice that he was alive again, and it would certainly get back to Eugene’s parents.

Fields of wheat and wildflowers pass by; sometimes a farm or a house pop up, occasionally a filling station. Eugene’s already stopped twice to fill up the gas tank. Merriell had watched as suspicious as a cat from his seat while the attendant serviced them.

The air in Alabama was only slightly less oppressive than it was back home. But it was just as bright. Merriell wore a pair of sunglasses and wanted another pair. Even with the tinted lenses, everything was harsh and washed out; no matter where he looked, he felt like he was staring directly at the sun. 

Eugene’s hand moves back to the wheel as he tries to steady it. “How’s your chest?” He gives a quick glance before putting his eyes back on the road.

“Been better,” Merriell answers. Everything aches like he’d been wrestling gators. Parts of his body that he didn’t even know existed hurt. All the tiny pieces Eugene tried to explain. The nerves the veins, all his body hair, even his fingernails, and eyelashes.

“Anything leakin’?” He glances again and reaches for Merriell’s shirt to move the collar slightly.

Merriell moves out of Eugene’s fingers and swats him away. “No, I ain’t leakin’.” 

They both chuckle at that. Eugene puts the same hand back on Merriell’s knee again, give him a soft squeeze and rub. “We’ll be there soon, I promise.” 

Merriell groans with the sound of the car, but nods, curling his body against the seat again. 

Eventually, Eugene pulls the car down a long dirt path that’s less windy than the main road. Merriell sits up to watch the trees pass. Flocks of birds fly from the branches. He hears the beats of their wings and ruffle of feathers; he can hear the stream over the hill and the little fish darting between rocks.  
They drive about a mile from the main road and a house appears, a quaint little white piece of property, with dark green shutters and a wrap-around porch. A swing hangs by the door, and a wagon sits abandoned by the stairs. Merriell sits up, gripping to the seat with both hands. 

“It’s okay,” Eugene promises. “Sid knows about everything. He’s takin’ care of us.”

Merriell doesn’t respond. He just keeps watching as Eugene parks the auto next to another, similar looking vehicle, both underneath a giant magnolia tree. Merriell counts the hand-sized blossoms on the ground.

Eugene shuts off the car and Merriell’s bones finally stop rattling. He lets out a contented breath. Eugene gives him another squeeze before unloading himself from the car. Merriell watches as Eugene stretches and pockets the keys. His hair burns under the noon-day sun, reminding Merriell of swamp lights. 

The front door of the house opens and a little dog dashes out, running right to Eugene and clawing at his knees. Merriell recognizes that dog, but can’t quite place it. Eugene bends to embrace the animal, holding it tight in his arms, pressing his face in the golden fur. A man comes out of the house, light-haired, eyes squinted from the sun. He comes down the porch and greets Eugene with a hug. Merriell recognizes him too. 

Eugene had explained that his childhood friend, Sid, was going to be putting them up in a guest house. They’d met several times before, Eugene promised, but Merriell didn’t recall. Maman said that could be a side effect of a resurrection. You leave some things behind.

The dog starts scratching at the door, giving Merriell a scare. He glances over the window, seeing little white paws and the bottom of a wagging tail. Eugene motions for Merriell to get out, which he does, feeling every bone pop and every join creak as he puts his feet on the ground. 

The dog stares at him, copper brown eyes, still wagging that tail. It steps forward to lick at his hand and nudge his hip. Merriell scratches between the dog’s soft ears, feeling a kind of kinship with the animal. 

“Remember Deacon?” Eugene asks, kneeling to the dog’s level.

Merriell shrugs. “He looks like you. Same hair.” 

Eugene grins, scratching under Deacon’s neck. “That’s right. Mother thought we shoulda had a snobby poodle.” 

“Coonhounds’re good dogs,” Merriell agrees, though to be honest, he prefers cats and his reptiles.

“They sure are.” Eugene stands and puts a hand between Merriell’s shoulder blades; Merriell sighs into the touch, as pliant as the affectionate dog. “Mer, this is Sid. Remember?”

Sid steps forward, a sympathetic smile to his lips. The face stirs a memory in the back of Merriell’s mind. A uniform, someone yelling, the sensation of a rifle in his hands. “Good to see you again, Shelton,” Sid says. He offers one hand for a shake, which Merriell accepts.

Touching Sid brings a wave of emotions that are not his own. There’s worry, there’s happiness about seeing Eugene, and some unease regarding a lady. Merriell clenches his jaw and slides back into Eugene’s waiting arm. 

Sid looks to Eugene, concerned. “It’s only been a few days,” Eugene explains. “We’re still trying to work everything out.”

“Sure,” Sid agrees. “Well, let me help you with some of your stuff, give you the tour.” He adds a smile before going to the automobile. 

“You okay?” Eugene asks, rubbing Merriell’s back.

“Yeah. everything just feels new.” 

“We’ll figure it out,” Eugene promises and leans in to kiss Merriell on the cheek. That still feels the same. And doing so out in the open sends a special kind of thrill down Merriell’s spine. 

Eugene and Sid carry the bags from the automobile past the main house, down a dozen yards or so, to a smaller house down the hill. Merriell follows, the dog at his heels. As he looks down at Deacon, he notices a nasty scar on his neck, something gnarled and pink. Merriell touches his own neck, feeling the fresh stitches at the hollow of his throat.

Sid chats about the property; something about acreage and a creek, the age of the buildings, something about a wife and a kid. The guest house that Merriell is led to reminds him of Eugene’s lab space. The air smells like antiseptic, and the light in the entrance area is too bright. 

“Most of the stuff is secondhand,” Sid explains as he drops a bag. Merriell jumps, but no one notices. “Or what Mary thought was too ugly for our house,” he adds with a chuckle.

Eugene glances around the den. Couches and chairs, a radio and gramophone, shelves with books, a table with a chess set. “That’s just fine,” Eugene says, getting closer to the bookshelf. 

“Running water and electricity,” Sid continues. “Got a toilet and a shower.” He gestures towards a narrow door. “Kitchen in the back, one bedroom there. There’s a cellar, but it ain’t finished.” 

“It’s more than enough, really,” Eugene says. “What do you think?” His attention is on Merriell now, who stands still in the entrance way, looking at all the space. 

He shrugs. “It’s fine.” It’s not home, but he has Eugene, so he supposes it’s acceptable. 

Sid claps his hands together to break the silence. “Well, if you guys are hungry, the missus wants you to come up for lunch. Do you eat?” he says to Merriell, who furrows his brows in response. 

Eugene sighs. “Of course he does. Deacon eats.” 

“I wasn’t sure how it all worked.” He stands awkward, hands on his hips, waiting for someone to say something.

Though he’s not particularly hungry, Merriell answers, “I could eat, Gene, what about you?”

“Yeah, sounds good.” He seems surprised by Merriell’s suggestion, and they follow Sid back to the main house. He talks more about property lines and family. It all becomes gobbledygook in Merriell’s ears as he trails behind Eugene. He reaches up to grab at Eugene’s fingers, feeling a sudden rush of panic moving up the hill. 

Sid takes them in through the back door, past piles of laundry, down a narrow hallway, and into a dining room, with tables set, lights dimmed, food already on plates. Merriell stands in the doorway watching Eugene and Sid pick seats. The food isn’t fancy, just sandwiches and a pitcher of sweet tea, small bowls of strawberries with milk and cream. 

From the kitchen walks the lady of the house, Mrs. Sid, Merriell gathers. She carries a plate with cheese and licks the thumb of her free hand. She pretty, too pretty for Sid, Merriell thinks. Her yellow hair reminds him of goldenrod fields. The material of her dress is stretched taut over the drum of her stomach; six or seven months pregnant. She rubs that belly in circles, giggling. “Sidney, she’s doin’ it again.” her voice is sugared and high-pitched like a pixie. She stands next to Sid and grabs his hand, pressing it to the side of her stomach.

Tenderness falls over Sid’s face, a soft smile as he leans forward to kiss his wife above the belly button. He holds both sides of her stomach like it’s a snowglobe. “A girl, huh?”

“Yes sir,” she says, still rubbing.

“We already have one of those,” he replies with another kiss. He puts his attention to Eugene. “She’s at my mother’s for the night. We weren’t sure how um, how things were going to go.” 

They can’t see, but Merriell narrows his eyes at Sid, finally moving from the door jamb to go sit next to Eugene. He drops on the wooden chair, jolting his already aching bones and stitches. “What’dja think I was?”

“Mer,” Eugene warns. “He didn’t mean anything by it. This is all new to everyone.”

He grunts in response and reaches for a glass of the sweet tea. It’s almost too sweet for him, his taste buds in a fickle state, but he swallows it down, hearing it slosh around his empty stomach. 

Sid clears his throat and reaches down for his wife’s hand as she sits. “This is Mary.”

“Nice to meet you,” she says, still smiling. She reminds Merriell of a sapphire, glittering and shiny, very hard to scratch or tarnish. 

“Thanks for the tea,” he mutters, sorry for his rudeness. 

He sloshes the ice around in his drink as Sid, Mary, and Eugene fall into a comfortable pattern of conversation. Childhood friends, the three of them, it’s like they’d never spent a day apart. They talk about school, about summer afternoons in the lake, fishing, an incident involving leeches. 

“Tell me about your family,” Mary says to Merriell, plucking a strawberry from her bowl.

He shrugs, drinks some more. “I got two sisters. Momma runs a voodoo shop. Daddy’s dead.” 

“Are you the oldest?”

He nods.

“Any nieces or nephews?”

He shakes his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Eugene grin and he bites into a strawberry. In usual circumstances, Eugene was the quiet one, reading the room, giving answers monosyllabically, or silently. And Merriell was the one who carried on conversations, who charmed the room, who made friends. 

As he responds to Mary’s inquiries, he wonders why she’s bothering. Hasn’t he been changed into some rough, unapproachable monster that only Eugene can love?

“I could get you something else to eat,” she offers. 

Merriell looks down and realizes he hasn’t eaten anything on his plate. “That’s not necessary,” he says, pushing away the plate. “I ain’t hungry.” 

“You’ll need to eat,” Eugene says. 

“Not right now,” he replies, petulant. He’s reminded of being force-fed as a child when he wouldn’t finish the food on his plate. 

Eugene clenches his jaw and taps along the table. Mary reaches over for his hand. “Deacon didn’t eat right away,” she reminds him. The dog is laying at Merriell’s feet and perks up his head at the sound of his name. “We’re all still figuring this out.” She brings back her hand to go at the strawberries again.

Merriell shuffles his feet, disturbing the dog. “Thank you,” he mumbles. He drinks more tea. 

After lunch, Mary insists on giving a tour of her home. She shows the den and the library on the first floor, the kitchen and the stairs to the cellar, then up to the second floor to show the bedrooms. Deacon follows closely to Merriell, which Merriell finds odd; the dog was never this affectionate towards him before. 

The house is quaint and decorated with simple furniture and things. Everything looks handmade, from the beds to the quilts and linens. He looks at the paintings on the walls, the only brightly colored things on display. He stops to look at one of a massive tree, something familiar from the back of his mind, it's wide trunk and light bark. He reaches to lightly touch the paint. “Who did all these?” he asks. “All the pictures?”

“I did,” Mary says. She puts one hand on top of her swollen belly, giving it a rub. “When I could get around better. I have a few things downstairs I need to finish.”

Merriell leans in closer as if he’s about to fall into the frame. “This tree around here?”

“Yeah, down by the creek. We don’t have many of them.”

He traces the edge of the tree, familiarity stirring in his chest. “We got ‘em in the swamp.” He can feel the roots in his heart. 

Eugene put a hand on Merriell’s shoulder, a slow drag. For a moment, Merriell feels the old sting of panic. The two of them had worked out a system on what touches were acceptable in public, what people would or would not notice. A hand on the shoulder would be innocent, but when Eugene put his chin on top of his hand that’s on top of Merriell’s shoulder, that would be crossing the line and they would hang. Again. “Gene.” He steps away, Eugene’s hand slipping down the length of his back.

“It’s fine, Mer,” Eugene explains. “They know about us.” 

He shakes his head, suddenly feeling small and cornered. “I’m gettin’ tired. I am tired.”

“Sure.” Eugene drags hands down Merriell’s arms. 

There’s an exchange of pleasantries and Merriell lets himself out the front door, Deacon following at his heels. He’s desperately craving a cigarette, but Eugene had told him no cigarettes until his stitches healed. 

The dog sits on Merriell’s foot, wagging his tail. “What’do you want?” Deacon’s only answer is pressing his face against Merriell’s leg, whining for some affection, which Merriell gives. 

He and Eugene walk together back to their new little home, Deacon following. Once inside the house, Merriell beelines for the bedroom, dropping himself onto the bed with an exhausted sigh.

“That was a lot,” Eugene admits. 

Merriell rubs the spot between his eyes. “It was fine. Just bright out there.”

“Should’ve gotten that cabin deep in the woods then.” Eugene smiles and steps closer, putting his hands on Merriell’s shoulders. Merriell wraps his arms around Eugene’s waist and presses his face against Eugene’s stomach, inhaling the fresh scent of his shirt. The fabric is stiff and scratchy against Merriell’s cheek, but he holds on tightly just the same.

Eugene snakes his long fingers through Merriell’s thick hair, over his ears, to the back of his head, scratching at the scalp the way Merriell likes. He sighs and leans into the touch like a satisfied cat. 

“I’m so tired,” he says into Eugene’s stomach. He tilts his head up to stare at Eugene, blinking slowly. 

Eugene continues petting him. “That’s normal. Your body is changing. Getting used to being whole again.”

“Am I whole?” he asks, leaning back just an inch so he can see Eugene’s face better. The angle of his neck makes his stitches sting, but he remains. 

“Of course, you are.” Eugene moves his fingers to trace Merriell’s cheeks and down to his chin, a thumb over his chapped bottom lip. He bends down for a kiss, which Merriell readily takes, though it feels a bit different than before as if his mouth had been replaced. “Go ahead and sleep. Take as much as you need or want.” He steps away, letting Merriell place himself prone on the mattress, pressing his head into the pillow.

Eugene helps him take off his shoes and socks, and sits on the edge of the bed for a minute, running his hand over the quilt. “What are you gonna do, _cher_?” 

“Hmm?”

He yawns. “While I sleep.”

“Oh.” Eugene shrugs before running a hand through his hair; he then puts that hand on Merriell’s ankle, circling the bone with his thumb. “I’ll probably walk up to the main house, catch up with Sid and Mary some more.”

Merriell nods, yawning again. He’s almost jealous of the bond that Eugene shares with these two people he doesn’t know, but he’s too tired to care at the moment. He turns, hugging the pillow. At that moment, the dog walks in, bypassing Eugene to hop on the bed. Deacon digs at the blankets a moment, turns in a circle, the drops, resting his head on Merriell’s hip. 

Eugene smiles, reaching over to scratch the dog behind the ear. “You’ll be alright, yeah?” he asks. 

“Hmm?” Merriell is already on the cusp of sleep; it calls to him like a voice in the swamp. “Yeah. Yeah, I got the mongrel to keep me company.”

“Hey,” Eugene begins, “he’s a pureblood coonhound.” 

Another yawn. “Yeah, yeah.” He takes off the sunglasses and sets them on the bedside table.

Eugene moves for another kiss, slow and tender, Merriell can tasted the strawberries from lunch. “I love you, you know that right?”

Merriell opens an eye to see the worried look plastered on Eugene’s face. He was always fretting about something. “Of course, I know.” He plays with the fabric over Eugene’s knee. He yawns again, body heavy and sinking. Eugene must see a change in his face because he just gives Merriell another kiss before telling him to rest. On his way out, Eugene closes all of the curtains in the room.

Merriell lies still in bed, sinking towards the white space between sleeping and awake, listening to Eugene grab something before slowly walking out of the front door. “You tired too, _chien_?” He reaches behind him to pet the dog before yawning again and giving into the white space.

 

*

 

Sid and Mary are waiting for Eugene on their back porch as he comes around, hands stuffed in his pockets. She’s settled deep into a cushioned chair, a glass of tea in one hand. She’s pulled unbuttoned her shirt to expose her belly and rubs it, her eyes closed and mouth curling into a small smile.

“Have a seat,” Sid says, gesturing to the chair beside him. 

There’s a glass of tea waiting for Eugene on the thin table that separates him and Sid. From the back porch, Eugene sees the creek down the hill; it’s rather wide, but not wide enough to be called a river. A flock of geese peck at the grass on the other side, while some deer dip their heads for a drink. “It’s real beautiful out here,” Eugene says, picking up his glass.

“I love it,” Mary answers, opening her eyes. “Daisy loves it too. Runs all around like a fool.” Their six-year-old daughter who Eugene hadn’t seen since she was an infant. “She’s always makin’ friends with all the animals. We have a bunch of rabbits in hutches.” Mary vaguely gestures to the other side of the house. 

Sid shuffles his feet against the porch. “She wants a pony. But that means I gotta build a barn.” 

“You could get goats,” Eugene suggests, sipping his tea. “Won’t need a big barn. They’ll also eat your weeds.” 

Mary grins. “Gene was always the smart one.” She gasps, quickly bringing Sid’s hand to her side again. “She is goin’ a mile a minute today!”  
While Sid smiles, Eugene notices his eyes brimming with tears. He moves from his chair to his knees in front of Mary, pressing a kiss to her stomach, hand moving to rub at the side. “I’ve got a good feeling about this one, Mary,” he says.

Her smile fades a bit, eyebrows soften. She runs fingers through Sid’s hair. “Me too.” But Eugene can tell she’s a bit unsure.

Sid never said much about the details, but he did write to Eugene about losing previous babies. The first, Mary had bled for days and they were worried that she’d bleed to death until a midwife from the church suggested a clotting agent. The second child had been dead in the womb two months before Mary’s body expelled it, also months premature. Eugene couldn’t imagine what the fetus looked like, and he didn’t know why they kept trying. How could Mary continue to take risks like that, knowing the outcome?

They watch the small herd of deer cross the shallow part of the creek and walk up the hill, close to the house. A buck stops to look at Sid, Eugene, and Mary on the porch as does and yearlings pass behind them. He gives a snort before continuing with his family. 

“Where are they going?” Eugene asks, craning his head to see if he could follow their path.

Sid gestured in their direction. “There’s an apple orchard that’s been abandoned for years.”

“I wish the crabapple tree hadn’t been struck down,” Mary laments. “Daisy and I liked having them in the front yard in the mornings.”

Eugene looks back to the creek again. “What was Deacon like, in the beginning?” Sid had kept Eugene updated in letters of Deacon’s progress with a daily inventory of activities. He remembers reading about fatigue and lack of appetite, the sensitivity to light and sounds. Some neediness, though Deacon had always been an affectionate creature. 

Sid takes in a breath and scrunches his eyebrows, remembering. “Fine? He was tired all the time, hand-shy like a horse. Followed Mary around. Didn’t I send you letters?”

“Yeah.” Eugene creaks in the chair and sets down his tea, the glass almost empty. “I’m just not sure what to expect from Merriell. He’s a person, not a dog.” He hadn’t put any thought into any kind of consequences in resurrecting Merriell. The second he was arrested and sentenced, Eugene knew it was something he had to do. For love, for justice. His dog turned out fine, as did the few birds he worked on, but in all his research, in those lost and hidden journals of a mad scientist who’d been victorious in his endeavors, were warnings of such a creature to be brought back from the depths.

The doctor, according to pages and letters, assembled an entire body from other parts, collecting from graves and morgues like a lepidopterist. He created an eight-foot behemoth to survive the jolts and bolts of electricity. The doctor had been so successful, but arrogant, abandoning his project, and his creature sook vengeance. The last entries of the journal were the doctor listing his fears while wasting away on a whaling ship heading for the Arctic. _I was cursed by some devil and carried about with me my eternal hell._

In these modern times, Eugene was able to control the voltage of the electricity, especially with Solange and her power to wield it. Merriell’s body did not burn, nor burst as the electricity brought him back to life. 

But the story of that creature tormented Eugene. What would become of his love, brought back from death where he very well could have been enjoying life eternal in heaven? Would he turn into a heartless being, someone who would no sooner look at you than snap your neck? 

“He just seems really hungover,” Sid says, bringing Eugene back from his spiral of thoughts. “He’s talking just fine. Even kind of polite. He wasn’t even that nice to me during the war,” Sid chuckles. Merriell and Sid served briefly during the Great War, the last few months spent in France, just out of the way of the trenches. Eugene had been in training at the time the war ended and never made it overseas. 

Mary rubs her belly again with both hands. “I think he’ll be just fine. Deacon thinks he’s safe enough. I’d trust that dog with my life.” She wrote to Eugene too, one of her great loves, she professed to him. _Though my heart and soul are Sidney’s, you will always be my first kiss and my dearest friend._ She gushed about Deacon, how much she loved him, what a lovely and well-behaved dog he was. Even before she was pregnant, Deacon protected her like his own pup. Sid never feared to leave her alone at the house. 

“I’m worried I made the wrong decision,” he confesses, voice wavering. His hand around his glass of tea shakes. 

“Oh, Gene,” Mary says, sadly. “He’ll be fine. I don’t even know him and I know that you’ve done the right thing. What your parents did was unforgivable. Leaving them in one piece is more than I could have done.” Her voice dropped low at the end as she protectively stroked her stomach.

Merriell’s family had promised he was doing the right thing; they hadn’t even asked him to help, completely willing to let Merriell pass on from this world into the next, but when he went to Berthe telling her what he could do, she quickly agreed and gathered the ingredients and practices for a smooth transition. 

_You’re not worried about his soul?_ Eugene had asked through tears as he sat with Berthe on the back steps of her home, feeling like a child again.

_His soul won’t be going anywhere, pet. I’ll make sure of that._

Sid clears his throat and taps Eugene against the knee. “Let me get you a drink, Gene. We’ve got some apple pie moonshine leftover from the war party.”

“Sidney!” Mary whines, looking up at him helplessly. “That’s not fair. I can’t drink that.” She pouts. 

He laughs and kisses her. “Just a small glass, sweetheart, we’ll drink it inside. Won’t be a minute.”

“Rub my feet when you come back out?” She smiles up at him.

“Anything.” He kisses her on the forehead and ushers Eugene inside to the kitchen. He goes to a cabinet for glasses, and then to the icebox and digs around before pulling out a small jar. The liquid fills a little less than half the container and after Sid pours the two glasses, there’s less than a quarter. 

Eugene looks at the amber liquid in his glass, swirling it around like wine. With good moonshine, you don’t smell the alcohol. The only thing Eugene smells is apple pie. When he took his first sip, he expected the harsh bite of near-pure alcohol, but only tasted cinnamon and dough. “I never wanted to be a doctor,” he says as he drinks some more. He loved his animals and the forest, the plants, and flowers all around him. He loved the ones in New Orleans even more. How could there be only one state separating their homes and the flora and fauna be so different? 

He wanted to write a book of comparisons or some kind of guide to travelers. He loved deer and birds, maybe he could have followed a flock or a herd and drew their daily lives. Or even the gators that Merriell seemed to love. But his father forced him to go to medical school, to carry on the family practice. 

Sid also swirled his drink before the first sip. “Well, it’s kind of a good thing you did. I mean, I don’t think I could have done what you did. I would’ve brushed it off as hogwash.”

Sid was the real doctor. He worked at a small family practice in town, seeing mostly older patients. He finished medical school after the war, he enjoyed working with people and healing them. Eugene didn’t know what he was going to do now.

They finished their drinks and joined Mary back on the porch, who demanded to kiss Sid so she could at least taste it on his lips. An hour later, the deer came back, the buck giving them the same suspicious glance before following his family down to the creek. The geese had left, flying overhead. 

Mary made a quick dinner of cabbage and reheated soup. She got out some good wine for Eugene, hoping it would ease some of his thoughts and troubles. “Like when we were kids, Gene,” she says, pouring him a cup. She sneaks a little sip.

As teenagers, they would snatch a bottle of cheap wine from somebody’s parents’ cellar, then sneak down to the swimming hole. They would either sprawl out in the grass or sit on the dock with their feet dangling in the water, splitting the wine between them. On more than one occasion, the three of them took turns kissing each other. Eugene and Mary, Mary and Sid, Sid and Eugene. But as Eugene grew older, what little attraction he had for women disappeared, and Sid no longer wanted to experiment kissing men.

They listened to the radio in the living room, Eugene sprawled on a blue chaise while Mary sat in Sid’s lap. They passed the wine bottle back and forth, Mary only taking tiny sips, not even enough to get her tipsy and silly.

With the moonshine and wine, Eugene feels less morose. His cheeks are starting to burn from smiling. He had missed Sid and Mary. First when his parents moved and picked out his medical school, then again during the war. 

They move to the back porch again to look at the silver stars in the imperial blue sky. The moon shines cadet gray over the grass and their bodies. Eugene watches the light dance over his pale skin. When he becomes sad at the thought of Merriell being gone, he’s suddenly reminded that Merriell lives, and it’s thanks to him, and Merriell’s family. 

“I love him so much,” Eugene swoons, leaning into Sid’s body as they sit side-by-side on the stairs. Mary sits in her cushioned chair, feet propped up on a crate, snoring. 

Sid giggles. “I know. I don’t know why. He’s a rough son-of-a-bitch.” He passes the bottle to Eugene. 

“He is,” Eugene agrees, drinking. “But only on the outside. He won’t let you know how sweet he is.”

Sid sputters with laughter, stirring Mary. “Shelton is sweet? I don’t believe you.” he shakes his head and takes back the bottle.

“Leave him alone, Sidney,” Mary yawns and tries to stand. “I’m sure that Merriell’s lovely when he’s around Gene.” She smiles at him and ruffles his hair. “Sid’s a lot more mushy when people aren’t around. Declares his everlasting love to be and everything.”

Sid gently takes her wrist and brings her hand to his mouth to kiss. “My love is everlasting and true, m’lady.”

She laughs and hiccups, covering her mouth. “See? He becomes a knight.” She kisses Sid on the mouth and then places a chaste kiss on the top of Eugene’s head. “I’m going to sleep. If you two are up in the morning, I’ll have biscuits and gravy ready.” 

“You don’t have to cook for us, Mary,” Eugene says, looking up at her with doe eyes and a goofy grin. 

“Keeps me busy,” she says with another yawn. “Don’t keep me waitin’, Sidney.” She winks at him before going back inside, leaving the back door open.

Sid giggles again. “She has these moods where she’s _insatiable_. Even more than when before she was pregnant.”

Eugene scrunches his face. “Ain’t that weird?”

“Yes and no. But who am I to deny my lovely wife?” A smile is plastered to his face. “Can you make it down the hill yourself?”

Eugene looks to the path of his new home, seeing the house with the porch light on only a few yards away. “Yeah.” He’d walked home more drunk than he is now many times, in much less light. Though he usually had Merriell leading him. 

Sid bids him goodnight with another giggle before practically skipping inside. Eugene leaves the wine bottle on the porch as he ambles down the hill, going towards the house. He watches the stars, picking out the constellations he knows, the Big and Little Dippers, Orion the Hunter; he makes up ones he doesn’t know. The swamp, the gator, Merriell’s eyes. He thinks of the greenish blue color of Merriell’s eyes and how sometimes they look a bit silver in the right light. 

The front door is open and Deacon lays sprawled out on a rug in the hall. He wags his large tail, making an awful thump sound as it hits the hardwood floor. “Shh, Deacon,” Eugene whispers, kneeling next to the door. “You’ll wake your daddy,” he giggles. He gives the dog a kiss before dragging himself to the bedroom. “Merriell, are you awake?” There’s no answer. “You’re not dead again, are you?” He tilts his head and leans against the doorway. But he hears raspy breathing.

Eugene makes his way to the bed and slips onto the mattress. “Merriell,” he whispers. Still nothing. He tilts his head and looks down at Merriell’s sleeping form, everything just barely visible by the light of the moon. He kisses Merriell on the ear and then the check, and lightly on the neck. He stills as his lips come into contact with stitches. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Merriell makes a noise, like a grunt, before rolling over to face Eugene and bury his face in Eugene’s chest. Eugene feels tears in his eyes and drapes an arm over Merriell’s thin waist.

**Author's Note:**

> this has been reposted as the first chapter. you're not losing your minds.


End file.
